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May 27, 2016

The Founder Institute Chicago's Summer 2016 Semester is now accepting applications at www.fi.co/join. The early bird application deadline is June 5, 2016.

World’s Largest Startup Launch Program - Become part of the world's largest global startup network with the assistance of our company-building curriculum, expert feedback, and peer support. The Founder Institute has graduated 2,100 companies and 2,500 founders across 135 cities across six continents.

Anybody Can Apply - Anybody who is passionate about building a technology company is welcome to apply: idea or no idea, full-time job or unemployed, young or old, male or female, experienced in business or straight out of school. We also support a wide range of technology industries: including digital media, software, biotech, cleantech, ecommerce, advertising, consumer electronics, and more.

Keep Your Day Job - Through a part-time four month program, existing and prospective founders can launch their dream company with expert training, feedback, and support from experienced startup CEOs - while still keeping their day job.

Graduate Liquidity Pool - Our unique Graduate Liquidity Pool enables graduates and mentors to share in the equity upside of each class, creating local, teamwork-based ecosystems where great new businesses can flourish.

Learn from Seasoned Mentors – The backbone of the Founder Institute is its mentors who lead the weekly training sessions. The mentors assist founders by sharing their experience, outlining the latest tactics, and providing critical feedback.

Service Provider Discounts - We leverage our global scale to secure free and discounted services from leading law firms, hosting companies, technology providers, and over 200 other vendors.

Fellowships - The Founder Institute offers a number of different Fellowships, providing opportunity for promising founders to launch a company in our startup program, free of charge. The Founder Institute Chicago includes fellowships for female, veteran, and technical. You can find more details at http://fi.co/fellowships.

Prestige - The growing success of Graduates, combined with the difficulty in completing the program and the credibility of the Mentors, make graduation a prestigious accomplishment to help you secure investment, close partnership deals, find co-founders, and ultimately build a meaningful and enduring business.

July 28, 2015

The Founder Institute Chicago's Fall 2015 Semester is now accepting applications at www.fi.co/join. The early bird application is August 9, 2015.

Below are some of the top reasons to apply for this program:

- World’s Largest Entrepreneur Training and Startup Launch Program - Become part of the world's largest global startup network with the assistance of our company-building curriculum, expert feedback, and peer support. The Founder Institute has graduated 1,550 companies and 1,700 founders across 100+ cities and six continents.

- Anybody Can Apply - Anybody who is passionate about building a technology company is welcome to apply: idea or no idea, full-time job or unemployed, young or old, male or female, experienced in business or straight out of school. We also support a wide range of technology industries: including digital media, software, biotech, cleantech, ecommerce, advertising, consumer electronics, and more.

- Keep Your Day Job - Through a part-time four month program, existing and prospective founders can launch their dream company with expert training, feedback, and support from experienced startup CEOs - while still keeping their day job.

- Graduate Liquidity Pool - Our unique Graduate Liquidity Pool enables graduates and mentors to share in the equity upside of each class, creating local, teamwork-based ecosystems where great new businesses can flourish.

- Service Provider Discounts - We leverage our global scale to secure free and discounted services from leading law firms, hosting companies, technology providers, and over 100 other vendors.

- Fellowships - The Founder Institute offers a number of different Fellowships, providing opportunity for promising founders to launch a company in our startup program, free of charge. The Founder Institute Chicago includes fellowships for female, veteran, and latino entrepreneurs. You can find more details at http://fi.co/fellowships#.

- Prestige - The growing success of Graduates, combined with the difficulty in completing the program and the credibility of the Mentors, make graduation a prestigious accomplishment to help you secure investment, close partnership deals, find co-founders, and ultimately build a meaningful and enduring business.

April 26, 2015

In order to start, build, and grow a business, entrepreneurs need to leverage person and business relationships. Sometimes it is a matter of survival for a company. Finding the right and effective relationships is the key.

Below are seven ways that entrepreneurs can leverage relationships to ensure more success:

1. Mentors - Finding mentors is a key relationship that most people, including entrepreneurs, need to have by their side. Learning from someone else who has the depth and breadth of experience is critical. Most entrepreneurs will tell you that their mentors were critical to their success.

2. Advisors - In addition to mentors, it is important that entrepreneurs find advisors to guide them in their business. Advisors should be diverse and provide expertise in areas that the entrepreneur is lacking skillset.

3. Investors - Finding capital from investors is very relationship driven. So entrepreneurs need to leverage relationships to find the right investors. Trust and credibility is important for referrals to investors.

4. Employees - Some of the best employees come from referrals. So, the same should apply for entrepreneurs looking to staff up their businesses. Early on, it can be expensive to hire a search firm so finding employees through established personal and business networks is important.

5. Partners - Similar to finding employees, finding partners is also very relationship driven. Once entrepreneurs know the types of partners that they are seeking, they should leverage their network to get introductions. Partners can be an integral component of growing and scaling a business.

6. Sales - Early on in the startup life cycle, entrepreneurs need to generate sales to provide that the market demands their firm's product or service. Many of these first customers come from existing relationships, which can turn into referrals. So, having a strong and diverse network is important.

7. Personal Branding- In order to generate sales and to start to build a brand, entrepreneurs need to build up their personal brand. The more credible the entrepreneur is, the easier it can be to generate revenue earl on. Entrepreneurs should spend time with other professionals to build trust so referrals and opportunities will come their way.

April 14, 2015

• 13th event in the series – Long-running-event series with a successful track record that has brought hundreds of people together to connect and learn for the past 10 years. This version of the GCNE will focus on how to leverage relationships to start, build and grow a company. And along with the way you'll learn how to increase brand awareness, sales and career success through the art and science of networking.

• Seasoned hosts – Event is co-produced and co-hosted by Lillian Bjorseth and Jason Jacobsohn who are synonymous with relationship building and connecting entrepreneurs and other professionals in the Chicago area. Lillian is a nationally renowned face-to-face networking authority and author of Breakthrough Networking: Building Relationships That Last. Jason is well known in the Chicago area as a “connector” for entrepreneurs, veteran panel facilitator and director of the Founder Institute.

• Successful entrepreneur panel - A panel of successful entrepreneurs will share the vital role that relationships played and continue to in the growth of their businesses and individual well-being. Already confirmed is Gary Rabine, founder and CEO of the Rabine Group, a group of facilities maintenance companies that are leaders in the paving, roofing, snow removal and fuel distribution industries. Also sharing her information is Genevieve Thiers, whose company, Sittercity.com, is America’s first online caregiving service, which has millions of users nationwide and serves hundreds of corporate clients. In addition, we are featuring Thaddeus Wong, co-founder of @properties, the largest independently owned residential real estate brokerage firm in Illinois and one of the 25 largest brokerage firms in the U.S. by sales volume.

• Grow your network – During the event, you will have the chance to network with entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals during our structured and open networking time. Mingle with sponsors that have products and services to assist you and help your business grow. You are guaranteed to meet 10 or more new people with whom who can start to build relationships.

• Enhance your relationship building skills – During the event, you will acquire valuable face-to-face and online networking tips and techniques. You will learn how the right relationships can add immeasurably to your success. In addition, you will gain skills and confidence that you can transfer to other networking opportunities.

March 15, 2015

Below are details for my annual event. This year's event is focused on entrepreneurs.

Greater Chicago Networking Extravaganza

May 14, 2015

5:30-8:45pm

TechNexus, 20 N. Wacker, Suite 1200, Chicago

Relationships are crucial to finding customers, partners, advisors, capital and peers with whom to share the journey. The 13th version of the GCNE will focus on how to leverage relationships to start, build and grow a company. And along with the way you'll learn how to increase brand awareness, sales and career success through the art and science of networking.

You'll start and end the evening with open networking. In between, you'll hear from Lillian Bjorseth, co-host and nationally renowned face-to-face networking authority, who will share the importance of a relationship-building plan to help you network strategically and systematically to meet the right people.

A panel of successful entrepreneurs will share the vital role that relationships played and continue to in the growth of their businesses and individual well-being. Moderator is Jason Jacobsohn event co-host and veteran panel moderator for the entrepreneurial and technology communities.

August 29, 2014

The Founder Night Out is a fun, social event where you can meet local entrepreneurs and technology CEOs, and share your business ideas and aspirations with like-minded peers. Meet the local Director as well as Mentors and Graduates. Join us for drinks and some startup networking!

Sponsors

DESIGNATION - Full-time, full-immersion, full-stack design bootcamp. Over 18 weeks, students learn digital design, front-end development and user experience (UX), and build their portfolios by working with live clients on real world projects.

August 16, 2014

The Founder Institute is world’s largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program, helping aspiring founders across the globe build enduring technology companies. We are now accepting applications for the Chicago Autumn 2014 semester!

We have already successfully graduated four classes of founders in Chicago. We are excited to have a new class kick off this autumn. Mentors for our upcoming semester include founders of Priceline, iExplore, crowdSPRING, Signal, RECSOLU, and Power2Switch.

Who should apply? Anybody who is passionate about building a technology company is welcome to apply: idea or no idea, full-time job or unemployed, young or old, male or female, experienced in business or straight out of school.

The early application deadline has been extended to 8/17/14. Also, one female applicant has the chance the win the Female Founder Fellowship. For more details and to apply, go to http://fi.co/join

August 09, 2014

The Founder Institute is the world’s largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program, helping aspiring founders across the globe build enduring technology companies. Join us in partnership with Flank 5 Academy for an opportunity to find out what it takes to make the leap from employee to entrepreneur. Do you want to start your own technology company, but don't know where to get started? You are not alone. Every day millions of people got to jobs they don't enjoy, but few do something about it. At the “Employee to Entrepreneur” event, you can hear the stories, tips, and best practices of those who left their jobs to pursue their own startup company. Listen to the experiences of people just like you that have made the transition, and discuss any questions or concerns that you have. How do you know if you have a good idea? What are the first steps in an entrepreneurial journey? Join us for a fun evening!

Panelists include Founder Institute mentors Lou Morales (Co-Founder, Optyn) and Seyi Fabode (Co-Founder, Power2Switch) and graduates Reva Minkoff (Founder, DigitaGroundUp) and Chris Motley (Co-Founder, Better Weekdays). Facilitator is Todd Connor who is the Co-Founder of Flank 5 Academy, which is a complete, step-by-step, 10 week Professional Transformation Incubator that brings together business strategy and cutting-edge psychology to help people launch new businesses and new careers. In addition, Todd is the CEO of The Bunker Incubator, which assists veteran entrepreneurs. Sponsors are Grind and Jenner & Block.

July 29, 2014

The Founder Night Out is a fun, social event where you can meet local entrepreneurs and technology CEOs, and share your business ideas and aspirations with like-minded peers. Meet the local Director as well as Mentors and Graduates. Join us for drinks and some startup networking! The evening is hosted and sponsored by Forum Coworking, a new executive coworking space in the West Loop. Forum helps entrepreneurs reach new levels of business via superior work space technologies, amenities, location, and access to integrated services through a membership community.

July 15, 2014

The Founder Institute is the world’s largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program, helping aspiring founders across the globe build enduring technology companies. Join us for a informational event where you can meet the local Director, mentors, and graduates to ask questions, and learn how you can launch a startup with the Founder Institute's help. What is it like to be in the Founder Institute? Who are some of the peers that you will be working with? Can the Institute help you build your dream company? Venue sponsor is Holland & Knight.